From Kati: Reasons to smile at strangers

The days are getting longer and the traffic was light today, so I had time to go on a run of my own after I got home from work. My leg can’t handle more than a couple of miles at a time, which is a convenient excuse for me to curtail my mileage to a leisurely thirty to forty minute cruise.

The colors of dusk still lingering at six pm, the drowsy, sweet aroma of blossoming Bradford pear trees, the impossibly happy grin of daffodils– as I ran, I noted these signals of spring’s approach. I counted twenty-two dogs, twenty turkeys, two cats, and a ruby-throated hummingbird. Marissa wrote this weekend about accretion and I suppose that’s what I do all day and especially when I run – I let a list of little things build up in my head and my heart, a register of things that make me laugh and smile, and those little things accrete into enough gratitude and joy to wipe out just about anything bad.

That list, just from today, is filled with a lot of things. At work, I billed an invoice to an address on “Secret Town Rd.” Why is the town secret, but not the road? Does the road lead straight to the secret town? When I took my lunch break, I saw someone has invented a machine to wave signs on corners, which made me laugh but also made me a little nostalgic.

Mostly, though, it’s people that make me grateful. I ran past a woman who was standing in front of a row of barren rose bushes, gazing at them as if her hope alone could somehow transfigure their bald stems into floral splendor. I liked her. I liked looking at her, and imagining what her life was like. Later on in my run, I spotted a single white rose in perfect bloom, and I appreciated it for the both of us.

I don’t feel bad about all the people watching I do, and I’ve noticed all of us who partake in a little evening fresh air are getting bolder with our eye contact as spring creeps in. The promise of long nights and warm days is making us kinder, and it shows in our gazes and our tentative smiles.

Lymphedema has made me more comfortable with the stares of strangers than I ever thought possible. Becky can testify to the odd glances we received as I wrapped myself in the Rome airport. Leaning on the wall of a little Armani store, my rolls of loose bandages unfurling out into the walkway as I concealed my leg, I must have looked like the most inept possible threat ever to set foot in a terminal. Yet people are also so kind—they hold doors, they help me with my luggage, they offer to roll my bandages, and they ask with genuine curiosity what happened and are you alright? Many of us look down and away as we go about our lives, afraid to meet the eyes of strangers. In seeking to avoid judgment, we miss the literal flood of generosity and empathy so many of us keep inside, waiting to share.

Like a nice spring run at dusk, all of this meandering has at last brought me to my destination, my best grateful surprise of the whole day. A whopping $6, 605 raised so far for lymphedema research! Thank you all so, so much for your support. I hope to see you all very soon, look you in the eye, and give you my thanks in person.